Evil Cody Says, “Focus on Amazon, Use Other Retailers Later!”

This is an Evil Cody post where my evil twin challenges conventional wisdom and tell’s you why it’s wrong.

Matthew Mather is the best selling self published author of The Complete Atropia Chronicals. As an entrepreneur, he created his own path to success using his unique SHAKESPEARE system which utilized conventional as well as unconventional tactics to publicize his ebook which effectively turned it into a best seller.

Distribute only through Amazon

The most controversial point to this system also makes perfect sense. Mather argues that you should only focus your distribution efforts on Amazon (at least in the beginning). Here’s a quote from his blog:

To start, focus only on Amazon. I’m not here to promote Amazon, but the first rule of entrepreneurism is to focus, focus, focus.” Matthew Mather

Why does this make sense?

First, Amazon is the by far the biggest online retailer out there, so if you rank well on Amazon, you’ll get more sales that if you rank well on any other retailer.

Second, getting to the top of online retailers search results for any particular category or subcategory is a massive catalyst for sales. A big part of rising in online retail rankings is book reviews. The more positive book reviews, the better you’ll rank.

If you direct readers to their outlet of choice and 20 of them review your book possitively, you may have 10 reviews on Amazon, 5 on B&N, 3 Smashwords, and 2 on Kobo (for example).

Your rankings are floundering because of lack of focus.

If, on the other hand, you direct all of your readers to Amazon and 3 of them decide not to review because they are Amazon sour pusses, you still have 17 positive reviews on Amazon.

This works greatly to your advantage as more people are exposed to your book through passive Amazon browsing.

So begin your book launch by focusing all of your promotion towards Amazon for 6-12 months. After that point, if you deem it worth your while you can use a service like Smashwords to release it to the other retailers.